Gambling has become an increasingly important and popular form of entertainment. Electronic gaming terminals are particularly important to the gaming industry as a variety of game formats can easily be produced that appeal to a broad spectrum of players. Electronic gaming terminals may include reel type slot machines, video slot machines, video poker machines, video keno machines, and video bingo machines.
Originally, gaming machines were provided as stand alone devices that operated independently. Today, most gaming machines are networked together in a local area network (LAN). These LANs are comprised of a bank of gaming terminals connected to a carousel controller. The carousel controller is in turn connected to a site controller that aggregates data collected from each gaming terminal. Typically, these networks have only allowed gaming establishments to track accounting and player data associated with game play.
More advanced networks have been created that allow gaming establishments to create what the industry refers to as wide area progressive games. A wide area progressive system (WAP) enables multiple gaming terminals at multiple locations in a wide geographic area to contribute and compete for one or more system-wide jackpots.
In addition to collecting wagering information from each participating gaming terminal, the progressive system also collects a variety of accounting data (e.g., life to date coin in information and other accounting data provided on meters in the gaming terminal) and event data. Event data may include jackpot winning events, open gaming terminal doors, and any other significant hardware or game related events.
The WAP uses this wagering information to determine the value of the progressive jackpot. Each time a gaming terminal accepts a wager, a part of the wager is apportioned to the progressive jackpot. Many gaming terminals can be connected to a WAP and the progressive jackpot can quickly increase to a significant level. These large jackpots are particularly appealing to many players and progressive games have become quite popular.
As the number of gaming terminals participating in a progressive increase, the jackpots become commensurately larger and increase at a faster rate. Game establishments often try to include as many gaming terminals as possible in a progressive game to provide ever increasingly larger jackpots. A number of gaming establishments can be linked together to participate in a single progressive game. Each participating casino's LAN is linked to a central system that provides a wide area progressive (WAP) game to multiple sites. With the wide area network, many more gaming terminals can be linked together into a single progressive game, allowing substantial jackpots to quickly accumulate.
These WAP systems have exponentially increased the difficulties associated with the data transmission and data management required to satisfactorily run a progressive game that may extend over a vast geographical area and between a number of different commercial entities. The larger number of geographically diverse gaming terminals participating in a single progressive game is only one factor increasing the complexity of maintaining and running a stable progressive gaming system.
For example, originally, only a single progressive game was offered at a gaming terminal. Today, a single gaming terminal may participate in several different progressives. These progressives may be local progressives (for a specific individual casino) or may extend between several different gaming sites. In addition, progressives have been suggested that include nontraditional progressives that accumulate jackpot prizes based on a variety of schemes and are triggered by a number of different methods.
The complexity of providing a myriad of different progressive games at different geographic levels and among different participating commercial entities creates a logistical challenge for the coordination of communications necessary to ensure a functionally stable progressive computer network. The challenges associated with communications between complex progressive games demand a solution that addresses the interrelationships between hardware and software. A communications system is needed that can quickly and efficiently process the intensive data communications generated by such large and complex systems.
The increasing complexity of the progressive games themselves, because of the addition of new features and capabilities to the gaming terminals, adds further challenges to any progressive system. The software used on these systems typically requires upgrading to accommodate the additional requirements imposed by these changes. The progressive system must be designed to incorporate these software upgrades without adversely affecting the operability of the progressive's communication network. The safest and easiest methodology for providing software upgrades is to segregate the communications system of the progressive computer network from the game software, whether it is a progressive or any other type of shared game.
What is needed is a networked gaming system that can handle the intensive data communication systems necessary to allow players to participate in a shared gaming experience, such as a progressive game, along with the capability to efficiently modify the shared gaming experience to accommodate new types of games and ensure a stable operating platform without affecting the networks communications systems.